Lauren Anne Dickason in the High Court at Christchurch on 17 July 2023. Photo: Pool / NZME / George Heard
Warning: This story contains content some readers may find distressing.
The jury in the murder trial of Lauren Dickason has asked to rewatch her police interview from the day after she killed her three children.
The mother has been on trial at the High Court in Christchurch for the murder of her daughters - two-year-old twins Maya and Karla, and six-year-old Liané - in September 2021.
She has pleaded not guilty, mounting a defence of insanity and infanticide.
Justice Cameron Mander spent most of the day summing up the case for the jury, going over their responsibilities and what had been covered over the last four weeks.
He began by reminding the eight women and four men to remove any emotions they have from their decision-making.
"You must reach your decision uninfluenced by prejudice and sympathy. Frequently feelings of sympathy or prejudice can be aroused in a criminal trial. It is understandable, if not inevitable, that such feelings are engendered in a case which involves the deaths of three little children."
He conceded that was difficult, but it was vital any decision reached was based on fact.
"Similarly, an entirely human response to three little girls being deliberately killed is outrage and horror. But you must put those understandable reactions and feelings to one side in order to carry out your task."
The judge went through the questions the jury will have to answer to reach a verdict, explaining the thresholds for murder and infanticide.
Both the Crown and defence agreed Lauren Dickason killed her children and was mentally unwell at the time, Mander said. It was now up to the jury to determine whether it was an underlying depressive disorder or postpartum depression she had experienced at the time of the killings, he said.
"What is an issue between the Crown and the defence is firstly whether Dickason's disturbed mind was by reason of her not having fully recovered from the effect of giving birth, or by reason of any disorder resulting or arising from childbirth."
The jury will then have to determine whether Dickason was mentally unwell enough to not be held fully responsible for her daughter's deaths.
Maya, Karla and Liané. Photo: Supplied
Mander then recapped the trial from both sides.
"The Crown says Dickason's actions that evening were a reaction to the frustration and anger she held towards the children and their behaviour, who as a result of their failure to conform to her standards, she'd come to resent," he said.
"And combined with the pressures she was experiencing at the time [emigration to a new country, the pandemic, riots in South Africa, it culminated that night and she snapped.
"The defence on the other hand say the major depressive episode from which Dickason was suffering not only caused her to think she had to kill herself, but to take her children with her. This depressive state was linked to, or cannot be severed from, the postpartum depression from which she had suffered that had never fully resolved."
The jury retired Monday afternoon to begin deliberations, but returned a short time later to rewatch Dickason's police interview.
They also asked to watch her husband's police interview again tomorrow.
